Invisibles 1,18
From Barbelith
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Credits
Grant Morrison (Writer) Phil Jiminez (Pencils) John Stokes (Inks) Daniel Vozzo (Colors) Ellie Deville (Letters) Julie Rottenberg (Asst. Editor) Stuart Moore (Editor)
The Invisibles created by Grant Morrison
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Summary
Sir Miles is torturing King Mob for information. Meanwhile police are exploring his home, looking for information. Boy is noticed watching them and only escapes with the help of a local. King Mob's mind is full of stories and defenses and Sir Miles has trouble with the interrogation. Miss Dwyer aids him with the use of Archon nanotechnology. King Mob is close to breaking as across town Boy and Ragged Robin join forces with Jim Crow...
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Characters
King Mob Sir Miles Delacourt ElFayed Lady Edith Manning Miss Dwyer Jack Frost Boy Ragged Robin Jim Crow
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Analysis
Moorcock, Michael Dick, Philip K. Dogon, The
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Annotations
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PAGE 1
Panel 3 (also Page 3, panel 5) British comedian Peter Sellers often played Indian characters (like in the film "The Party"). He also did a song called "Goodness Gracious Me," with Sophia Loren, in which Loren sung about her love problems to her Indian psychiatrist, spoken with an over-the-top Indian accent by Sellers. At the end of each chorus she sang "My heart goes boom-bee-dee-boom-bee-dee-boom..." with Sellers commenting "Oh goodness gracious me." This was from the swinging London era [RL]
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PAGE 2
The title page with nudes seems very reminiscent of the opening credit sequences from James Bond movies [RM]
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PAGE 3
Panel 1 'Trest in Allah!': is this supposed to be a reference to something? [BSI]
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PAGE 5
The effects of Key17 (subject incorporates written words into his/her personal universe as the objects they describe) are a direct steal from Time Out of Joint by PKD. In TOOJ, Ragle Gumm (U.S. pun) discovers that the objects in his environment are only words on paper and that he and his neighbors have been conditioned to act as if they were real. Where he expects to see a soda drink stand he finds only a slip of paper with the words "soda stand." A PKD classic! [CAG] The Key 17 premise probably is from Philip K. Dick, but another possible source (which might itself be a PKD steal) is "White Noise" by Don DeLillo, in which a side effect of the drug Dylar allows a man to be killed by the word "bullets." [EB] An alternative source for Key 17, especially given the name, may be 'Babel-17', from the novel of the same name by Samuel R. Delany. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, that a person's thoughts and perceived reality are strongly affected by their language, is prominently featured in the book. [DCJ] Grant himself developed a facial abcess a couple months after this issue was written. He commented on correlaries between the book and his illness in the Lettercol of Invisibles 1,24 [BSI] Panel 5 First mention of Jolly Roger, from Invisibles 2,1 [RL]
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PAGE 6-7
Mary Brown the cleaning lady's entrance reminds me of an old Malcolm McDowell film called "O Lucky Man!" A similar scene occurs in that film, if I remember it correctly [CG] CG is right: the line "Would the young man like anything?" is from the torture scene in "O Lucky Man!" (which also includes a trick question Sir Miles would like: "Which is more important, loyalty or obedience?") [EB] Ms. Brown also appears in Invisibles 1,22, pages 18-19 [JB]
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PAGE 8
panel 1 "Millionaire author": so we finally get to know how KM finances his lifestyle. It's always convenient to have millionaires in your comic series (like Batman/ Bruce Wayne) [RL]
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PAGE 9
The magic stone, embedded in the earth, just as a stone is embedded in Dane's forehead? [JB]
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PAGE 17
Panel 1 Yikes! What *is* that? [JB]
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PAGE 18
Panel 3 "Sounds like he's..ah...speaking in TONGUES.": A reference to glossolalia, a recurring motif in Volume 1 [JB]
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PAGE 19
Panel 4 Baron Zaraguin, I presume? [RM] From P.K. Dick's "VALIS" [1981], p. 100: "50. The primordial source of all our religions lies with the ancestors of the Dogon tribe, who got their cosmogony and cosmology directly from the three-eyed invaders who visited long ago. The three-eyed invaders are mute and deaf and telepathic, couldnot breathe out atmosphere, had the elongated skull of Ikhnaton and emanated from a planet in the star-system Sirius. Although they had no hands, but had, instead, pincer claws such as a crab has, they were great builders. They covertly influence our history toward a fruitful end." [JB]
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PAGE 20
This scene reflects two encounters KM had with Edith. One was first hinted at (but not seen) in Invisibles 1,14, pg. 6, the other was was shown in Invisibles 2,10, pg 15. [BSI]
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